


Mais toi tu ne sais pas que je t'aurais tout donner

by sarahcakes613



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, Inspired by Music, M/M, Masturbation, Musicians, Subways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:54:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25019608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/pseuds/sarahcakes613
Summary: Sonny sees a man on the subway, and can't stop thinking about him.AU in which Sonny is a musician, Barba is still the ADA we know and love.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 78





	Mais toi tu ne sais pas que je t'aurais tout donner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mimisempai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimisempai/gifts).



> This began when I told Mimi about a song by Cœur de pirate called Printemps, and when I told her the Barisi image it put in my head, she said she could see it too, and about an hour later she had made the most amazing video, which can be seen [ here](https://youtu.be/hvK_iSifik0). Watching it gave me even more inspiration and so here we are!
> 
> Title is from the song, it translates to "But you don't know that I would have given you everything".

_“Good evening, this is your conductor. There’s a bit of train traffic on the tracks, so we’re going to be remaining in the station for just a few minutes until it eases up. Thank you for your patience.”_

Sonny looks at his watch and grimaces. He’s already cutting it close, and Amanda is going to run him through the grinder if she’s late getting home to her sitter.

He leans back in his seat, long legs stretched out in front of him. The car’s only about half-full, most people already tucked up at home at this hour, but Sonny’s day is just starting. He’s on his way to work, where he barbacks third shift at John’s, a neighbourhood bar in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s not the most glamorous job he’s ever had, but in exchange for hauling kegs and washing glasses five nights a week, the owner gives him the stage one night a week.

He’s been performing an hour-long set every Tuesday for a few months now, and he’s even built up a small following, fans who come to every show, and take selfies with him that they tag him in on Twitter and Instagram. Occasionally, if he’s feeling real loose after a show, he lets one of them take him home for the night.

He tries to keep things interesting, alternating old favourites with new stuff he’s been writing and a few cover songs. He doesn’t take requests, not that that stops the occasional drunk jackhole from yelling out a demand for Dust in the Wind, and he’s got nothin’ against Kansas, but sometimes a guy gets a little tired of prairie rock, is all.

The speaker above his head crackles to life again, then falls silent. He checks his watch, a vintage Rolex that his grandfather had left him, then checks his phone, cursing as he double-checks the time. They’ve only been stalled a few minutes, but he’s already on Amanda’s bad side for the second time this month and he’s not keen on striking a third.

Seriously, how was he supposed to know the cute girl chatting him up at the bar was her little sister visiting from out of town?

He lets his attention drift, casting his eyes over the other occupants of the train car and out onto the empty platform. He turns his head, looking over his shoulder out the window and into that of the train next to his, also stalled but going the other direction.

A man standing in the other train car catches his eye. He’s standing with his profile to Sonny’s gaze, one hand stretched up above him to hold on to a support bar, the other hand by his chin, fingers loosely hooked onto a jacket slung over his shoulder. Sonny sees the shadow of a sweat stain under his arm, it’s only just turned to spring but the weather has been warming up, the snow already melting away for another year.

The stance is what catches his eye, but the man’s outfit is what keeps it. He’s dressed in a dark reddish-purple pinstripe with a florid purple paisley tie and matching suspenders. Sonny doesn’t know too many men outside his nonno’s age bracket who wear suspenders, but the man he is looking at is most decidedly not his nonno’s age.

He looks older than Sonny, but not by much, the lines on his face look put there more by long hours at work than age. He’s tanned, but it doesn’t look like the kind that comes out of a salon. He isn’t very tall, but his stance is strong, he’s a man who is clearly used to being in charge. He’s staring straight ahead but his eyes are drooping, and Sonny would guess he’s been at work since an hour when Sonny himself is usually just going to sleep.

His eyes drift closed and his head tilts a bit, as if listening to something. Based on the look of other passengers, Sonny thinks perhaps the other train’s speakers are making an announcement of similar sound to the one he’s just heard. Whatever is said, the man doesn’t like it, because he winces, his eyes tightening and his mouth thinning into a frown.

With his head tilted, more of it is facing Sonny, and he runs his eyes over furrowed brow, a large nose, a firm jawline. His hair is dark and thick, brushed away from his forehead, and his face is nearly smooth, but he can see a shadow of stubble. And suddenly, his eyes catch green, the other man’s eyes are now open and staring straight at him. He feels suspended, trapped in the resin gaze of the other man’s eyes.

They stare at each other for a heartbeat, maybe two, not blinking. The other man’s lips curve slowly into a smirking smile and then his arm jolts where he is holding onto the support bar, as both their trains begin to move.

He turns his head, keeping his eyes locked on Sonny’s as his train begins gliding out of the station, and Sonny pushes himself against the window of his own car as his train begins it’s own descent into the tunnels.

A few split seconds and then the man is gone.

Sonny slumps back in his seat and leans his head back, thinking about the other man. He’d been beautiful, which isn’t a word Sonny’s ever thought about pairing with a man before, but it’s the only one that gives any justice to the energy he’d exuded.

He’s still thinking about the man when he finally sweeps into the bar at three minutes past the hour, and he apologizes to Amanda profusely but she just rolls her eyes and waves off his explanation as she leaves.

His shift is one long blur of repetitive actions, and he spends most of it with his mind on a stalled subway car. He accepts a ride home from his boss, eager to fall into bed as soon as possible. Tomorrow is his day off, and he’s had a new melody strumming in the back of his head for a while now that he’s eager to get down on paper.

He waves a goodbye to John as he unfolds himself from the car and trips up the stairs to his fourth floor walk-up. He bypasses the kitchen and thinks about bypassing the bathroom as well, but if he doesn’t shower before bed he’s going to wake up feeling like he slept in an ash tray.

Standing hunched under the hot spray of water, he drums his fingers idly against his thigh, playing out a piece of the new tune he’s been working on. His mind drifts back to the man on the subway, and the way his fingers had looked with the jacket hooked over them. They had been long fingers, musician’s fingers, Sonny thinks, built for playing the clarinet, or oboe, something with elaborate keywork.

He’d had a briefcase tucked between his feet though, not an instrument case. The pattern mixing of his outfit suggested a certain level of freedom, so he probably wasn’t a low ladder rung in some accountancy firm or bank. A broker maybe, or lawyer?

He’s essentially asleep on his feet by the time he gets out of the shower and crawls into bed, and then he isn’t thinking about the man at all.

* * *

Until he wakes up hard and rutting against the mattress, and he realizes he’s been having a dream about the anonymous man. He peers over at the clock. It’s midmorning, late enough that he’s gotten a solid six hours, so he doesn’t bother trying to get back to sleep.

He flops over onto his back, letting his hand slide down his stomach to grip himself loosely. He tries to chase the thread of the dream, but all he remembers is the other man’s fingers. They’d been on him, inside him, stretching him out.

He spreads his legs, feet planted on the bed, and lets his fingers trail down past his balls to tease at his entrance. He reaches under his pillow for the bottle of lube he keeps tucked there, upends it onto his fingers. He hisses as he presses one finger into himself, squirming as he tries to find the right angle for this position.

He returns the other hand to his cock, wrapping his own long fingers more firmly around it and stroking, coating it with lubricant. He luxuriates in the silky feeling of the lube on his skin, the smooth way his hand strokes up and down while his other hand is now two fingers deep in his ass.

He thinks about the man, about the way his fingers had looked, curled around the support bar. He thinks about they would look spreading Sonny’s cheeks, sliding into his hole. This is his fantasy, and he is already partly stretched out, so the man’s fingers slide in smoothly, two of them, and they’d looked thicker than Sonny’s own, so he withdraws his hand and fucks back into himself with three fingers.

He casts his mind’s eye back over the man, focusing on his jaw. He’d had a wideset jaw, just the slightest bit of end-of-day stubble covering it. Sonny’s never bought into the stereotypes of height or foot size indicating anything else about a man, he’s got too many ex-lovers that negate the tropes. That being said, he’s got his own private theory about wide jaws, and he is sure if he got on his knees for the man from the subway, if he tugged the man’s pants down and pulled his dick out, it would be thick, thick enough to stretch Sonny’s mouth to it’s limit, thick enough that just sitting on it would be enough to have it press against his prostate.

He bucks his hips, pushing down on his hand and he pants hard as he feels his fingertips just graze it. He twists his wrist, twists his whole body, and is rewarded when he is able to stroke his fingers over his prostate, causing his cock to jump and drool precum onto his belly.

He fucks into himself a few more times, but the position isn’t sustainable, and he draws his fingers out reluctantly, focusing his efforts on his cock, hard and pulsing against his stomach.

He thinks again about the man, the slow way he’d smiled when he’d locked eyes with Sonny. The sardonic arch of his eyebrow hinted at a playful nature, like maybe he’d be the sort of man who would tease Sonny, would stroke Sonny slow until he begs for fast, gentle until he begs for hard.

Sonny tries to drag it out on his own, but he is too caught up in the fantasy and he can’t bring himself to stop, his hand speeding up, gripping himself tightly, his other hand rolling his balls, tugging at them just a little bit, until he can feel his orgasm start to build. It coils in the base of his spine and then explodes outwards, and he cries out as he comes so hard, he feels hot spurts of it hitting the dip of his collarbone.

He falls back panting, his head hitting the pillow and his hands falling to his side. Head cleared of all coherent thought, the melody he’s been working at comes back, and he scrambles out of bed, humming to himself so he doesn’t lose it.

* * *

The next night there are no delays on the train and he gets to work five minutes early, earning a sunbeam of a smile from Amanda. Two weeks goes by in a haze of working nights and days spent with his guitar, fine-tuning his new song. He’s not ready to present it just yet, but it’s getting there.

Every time he picks up his guitar to work on a piece of it, he thinks about the way the man on the subway had looked when they’d made eye contact, the shared look that didn’t last near long enough.

He hasn’t told anyone about the man, not wanting to sully the memory with teasing or laughter, but Amanda knows something is up when he plays through an entire set and then walks right by his small gaggle of groupies to the bar.

“You okay?” She asks, sliding a ginger ale across the bar to him.

He works the straw with his lips, looking back at her with furrowed eyebrows. “Yeah, why? Was somethin’ wrong with the set?”

“No, it’s jus’, you didn’t even bother to greet your little Sonny posse over there. That’s not like you.”

Sonny shrugs, returns to playing with the straw.

“I mighta met someone. I don’t know. It’s nothing.” He mutters it into the soda, but she hears him clearly and her eyes brighten.

“It’s definitely not nothing, so spill, who is this person?” She leans her elbows on the bar, resting her chin in her hands like she’s getting ready for storytime.

“I don’t actually know, is the thing.” He explains about the stalled subway, the man on the opposite train, and how he can’t stop thinking about the man’s green eyes, the way he’d stood, the showy paisley tie and braces.

“I’ve been working on a new song,” He confesses to Amanda, “and I keep having to scratch out the lyrics because they’re all about him, and I don’t even know his name.”

Amanda’s eyes are soft, and he can see that she’s gearing up to say something thoughtful and considerate. He waves it away before she can open her mouth.

“I’m not hung up on him or nothin’,” He reassures her. “I know the chances of me actually running into him again are pretty slim, I’ll get over it eventually.”

“You never know,” she shrugs a shoulder, “even in a city this big, serendipity happens.”

“Serendipity, huh,” he scoffs. “You sure that’s not a stripper name?”

Her response is to flick a bar towel at him.

* * *

In a New York miracle, Sonny’s train doesn’t stall for an entire month after that first encounter. He stays hopeful, always trying to get a seat by the opposite window, but twice a day for four weeks, his rides are smooth and on schedule.

And now, almost exactly a month later, his train is stalled. He’s running late, but it’s to his own set this time, a different day of the week from the first time around. He cranes his neck anyhow, skimming his eyes over the people in the train car stalled next to his own, but there are no tanned men in paisley ties. Sonny slumps back into his seat, taps his fingers restlessly against the neck of his guitar case.

It’s been a month with none of Amanda’s promised serendipity, he should have moved on by now, but he can’t seem to think about anyone else. He falls asleep thinking about the man, dreams about his fingers, wraps his own hand around himself and comes with a pained cry because his lips ache to know the name he should be calling out.

His song is finished, at least, and he’s planning to debut it tonight. He’s happy with the setlist he’s got planned. The weather has recently turned, winter making one final bid for attention, and that’s always good for the bar, which in turn is good for his audience reach.

The train lurches forward and Sonny runs through his show in his head, mentally rearranging some songs until his station is called.

He plays the new song towards the end of his set, sliding it in between one of his older original ballads and a cover of one of his favourite John Denver songs. It goes over well, and he feels good about it. He thinks about recording it and uploading it to Youtube, like his sister’s always telling him to do.

He takes a five-minute break from playing to talk to the crowd while he changes the keys on his guitar for the final few songs. It’s mostly idle chatter about the weather, the cold has turned wet and he’s not looking forward to ducking raindrops with his fabric guitar case tucked under his coat.

The door to the bar isn’t particularly heavy, or loud, it doesn’t slam open with a dramatic bang, so Sonny can’t say what compels him to look up when he does, but his eyes drift over to the entrance just as it opens and someone walks in, shaking a wet umbrella as it collapses into itself.

Sonny sits frozen for a moment as the man from the subway tucks his umbrella under his arm and pulls a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He strides over to the bar and unfolds it, gesturing to Amanda, who nods her chin in the direction of the stage and Sonny.

The man turns now and notices him, and even from halfway across the room, Sonny can see that his eyes are exactly as green as he remembered them being, his slow smile and the arch of his brow just as imperiously sexy.

Sonny doesn’t know how he gets through the last two songs, faster-paced beats that leave people tapping their feet and bopping their head as they leave. He’s pretty sure he’s running entirely on muscle memory, but no one seems to notice at least.

He smiles, does his shy seated bow, thanks everyone for being there. As he slides off his stool, subway man picks up the two glasses in front of him and weaves his way through the tables to the stage. He stands patiently while Sonny tucks his guitar away, and Sonny already envies his cool nature, because if their roles were reversed Sonny would probably be bouncing anxiously on his toes.

Finally Sonny turns to face the man, who hands him his usual post-gig ginger ale.

“Thanks,” Sonny says breathlessly. As he takes it, their fingers brush, and he feels a shiver run straight through his hand and up his back.

“You’re a hard man to find, Sonny.”

His voice is a smooth tenor, deep and assured.

“You been lookin’ for me?” Sonny asks, hoping he sounds as smooth as he’s aiming for.

The other man nods, his eyes not leaving Sonny’s. In the dim light of the bar his cheeks look almost rosy, and Sonny realizes he’s blushing.

“You probably don’t even remember,” he says, “but I saw you on the subway about a month ago.”

“The stalled trains at 28th, I remember.” Sonny says, his throat suddenly dry. He sucks down some ginger ale, and the other man’s eyes track his throat moving.

His tongue darts out to lick at his lips and he nods slowly. “Yes, it was quite late in the day. I was on my way home from work, nearly asleep on my feet, and you were…radiant. I confess, I haven’t been able stop thinking about you.”

“Me too!” Sonny blurts out. “I mean, in the other direction. I kept hoping our trains would sync up again but…”

“I’ve been trying not to stay at work so late,” the man looks almost apologetic. “I’m a prosecutor for the district attorney’s office, it’s not easy.”

A lawyer, then, Sonny hadn't been completely off in his employment estimations.

“You have me at a disadvantage then, counsellor. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

The man’s eyes darken when Sonny calls him counsellor, and Sonny can feel his own skin flush in response.

“Rafael, Rafael Barba.” He holds his hand out, and Sonny takes it in a firm handshake.

“Rafael,” he repeats, his Staten Island accent thick over the vowels, “I’m Sonny Carisi.”

“Yes, I know,” Rafael says, “I saw your name on the flyer. That’s how I even knew to come here.”

He pulls the flyer out of his pocket, showing it to Sonny. It’s one of the xerox posters he and Bella had spent an afternoon papering telephone poles with a week ago, another part of her mission to get him to promote himself a bit more. It’s ragged, like Rafael had ripped it right off it’s staples.

“I got home from work and was heading back out to pick up some late dinner when I noticed this at a crosswalk.” Rafael explains. “And then I hailed the first cab I saw.”

That explains why he’s dressed more casually than last time, in fitted jeans and a grey polo shirt under a jacket.

“Does that mean you haven’t had dinner?” Sonny asks abruptly.

“No, no I guess I haven’t.” Rafael answers sheepishly. “I was worried I’d miss your entire set; I didn’t even make it as far as the pizza parlour.”

Sonny hoists his guitar case over his shoulder.

“Well now I just feel bad, Rafael,” he enjoys the way the name curls out of his mouth almost as much as he enjoys the way Rafael’s eyes darken when he says it.

“And why is that?” Rafael murmurs.

“The way I see it, it’s my fault you haven’t eaten yet,” Sonny says. “The least I can do is buy you that slice of pizza.”

Sonny sets his glass down on a table and Rafael follows suit. As they walk out of the bar, Sonny flashes a big grin and thumbs up to Amanda, who throws him a salute.

It’s stopped raining, and Rafael folds his jacket over his arm, his umbrella hanging off his wrist by it’s strap. His other hand hangs loosely by his side, and Sonny’s own fingers twitch, wanting to touch.

He reaches out, shyly, just letting his pinky graze Rafael’s. Rafael turns his head, looking down at where their hands are just barely touching. He smiles, and tucks his hand into Sonny’s, letting their fingers tangle together.

As they walk down the street, their steps are in sync. Sonny can feel Rafael’s pulse beating in his fingertips, and there’s a melody in it that thrums through their joined hands and into Sonny’s head. It’s not a cohesive thought yet, just a thread of something, but he’s sure that with a bit of focus, he can turn it into music.


End file.
